Hey Guys,
I have played around with this a ton. I believe i have actually posted this once before in here, but here is a very new take. I played with layers/exposures and blended, so i hope its pretty smooth... im still learning

How are the blacks? They look great on my screen and like crap on my wife's laptop. My screen is generally better, but this has me worried a little

I used threshold layer set to ten and placed a color checker in the four largest (not that large) areas that remained (then turned threshold off). Here are the numbers I got.

15,1,0
13,1,1
12,0,0
19,3,3

That is showing me a strong red cast that has your blacks "not (neutral) black". I also noticed that your file is in Adobe color space. Laptops typically have a more narrow gamut, and depending on how things are set up can have an impact on how they present colors outside their gamut.

Kinda hard to know how much of this is intentional "artistic rendering" vs. a color space issue vs. a PP issue. Can you post up a straight/raw version for comparison?

The argument can be made that the intense red cast is "natural" because of the color of the light from the setting sun. The red cast is a bit much for my taste. How about cutting back at least on the rocks?

BTW, I would not spend a excessive amount of time working with subtle color changes on a downsized image. Downsizing has all sorts of adverse effects including changing the colors and often adding splotchy patches.

Camperjim wrote:
The argument can be made that the intense red cast is "natural" because of the color of the light from the setting sun. The red cast is a bit much for my taste. How about cutting back at least on the rocks?

BTW, I would not spend a excessive amount of time working with subtle color changes on a downsized image. Downsizing has all sorts of adverse effects including changing the colors and often adding splotchy patches.

The sunrise did have a bunch of red in it (esecially the reflection on the rocks). I obviously added some more for drama effect,and the purple also came out more through my editing. so in a way, i was going for the 'slightly over the top' look, but do you think its 'too' much? I can prolly figure out how to cut the reds back a little. Im still learning to do advance things on photoshop, so selecting a certain color is actually something i haven't done before...

What do you mean about downsizing? I never did any downsizing? I edited RAW files, which were blended in photomerge (CS5), the after several layers, saved as a PSD which i keep until im down, then i save as Jpeg to upload online or send through email....

i didn't downsize anywhere in there unless the computer is doing it automatically?

Then to make the shot in my original post, i blended 6 exposures, the above being on of them. I went from the above shot, to -6 stops, and positive 6 stops. so like -6,-3,0,+3, +6. Know what i mean? Sorry if im not using the correct terms, haha

RustyBug wrote:
I used threshold layer set to ten and placed a color checker in the four largest (not that large) areas that remained (then turned threshold off). Here are the numbers I got.

15,1,0
13,1,1
12,0,0
19,3,3

That is showing me a strong red cast that has your blacks "not (neutral) black". I also noticed that your file is in Adobe color space. Laptops typically have a more narrow gamut, and depending on how things are set up can have an impact on how they present colors outside their gamut.

Kinda hard to know how much of this is intentional "artistic rendering" vs. a color space issue vs. a PP issue. Can you post up a straight/raw version for comparison?...Show more →

I dont know what those numbers mean unfortunately, but it sounds like your saying there is too much red? I was trying to add some red to make the image more dramatic, and appealing to the eye. Also, i felt it was more interesting, but if you can share a tip on how, i wouldn’t mine cutting the red on the rock back a little. I can see what your saying about it being a little unnatural looking

Camperjim wrote:
The argument can be made that the intense red cast is "natural" because of the color of the light from the setting sun.

Agreed ... and reflecting off the rock into the shadows. Thus, when the OP asks about his "blacks" (vs. using the term shadows), I assume he's asking about "neutral" blacks, but was somewhat unsure as to his intent in that regard.

S&P to taste @ neutral vs. "natural" ... both can work, but I do think this one might be a little hot.

Alright guys, so i listened and did another edit from the original post. I went in and pulled the reds back, while also lighting the rocks just a tad more (highlight of them). How does this look? Slightly more natural? Also, as i said, the rocks/color was very red (really more orange than anything), i am just amplifying it a little as i am going for a dramatic look

First let me say that I like the image and especially the redo by Jim and your last one.

Any image can be changed in photoshop and if you post it here it will be, its the reason for this forum to exist.

On downsizing. I am pretty sure the image from your camera is larger than the 800 or so pixels wide presented here. No matter where it was downsized between capture and presentation, Jim's remarks stand.

ben egbert wrote:
First let me say that I like the image and especially the redo by Jim and your last one.

Any image can be changed in photoshop and if you post it here it will be, its the reason for this forum to exist.

On downsizing. I am pretty sure the image from your camera is larger than the 800 or so pixels wide presented here. No matter where it was downsized between capture and presentation, Jim's remarks stand.

I posted from flickr and selected the 1024 size. You know, since you can choose small, med, large and then a couple other different variations. So since i only chose (1024 x 694), ill agree, it is downsized. The originally is 4305 x 2918 wide. Is this the wrong way to upload it online ina smaller size? the large size wont even fit on laptops or smaller screens....

Is this smaller size i posted why on my 26' screen, the color POP, then blacks are deep and black and the color seem exactly were i want them, while when i look on my wifes laptop, the blacks have a grayishtone in areas and its almost like the whole pic has lost contrast and has a haze over it?

Ill look atwhat you posted now.

So, back to the photo... Did the 2nd redition i posted come out better, where i backed the reds off? I think thats more natural. The other one someone tired was too back off and not what it looked like since as i said, the original has a ton of red/orange color in it . Maybe i should back it off just a tad bit more? Sorry im asking for so much help, but i love how i took a different approach to an overly shot area and tried something new. I want to print it for my wall/ parents, so this is why im trying to make it look as best a can

OK Guys, thanks for all the help so far, seeing your edits is helping me see other options, but not straying from my 'artistic' view i am going for, which is a colorful sunrise with a red/orange glow, so im trying to keep some of the light on purpose...

Here is my most recent edit. I went for the medium of what you guys have posted. I pulled the reds back even more and lightened the rocks just a tad more with selective dodges.

With the exception of the "golden hours" before the sun rises and after it sets natural lighting is a mix of color temps: sunny / shady. The shade is cooler because the light in shadows indirectly bounces off the sky.

At noon set to a "Daylight WB" baseline the camera records the stuff in the sun neutral and the stuff in the shade with a blue bias. Whether or not the blue bias in the shadow the camera records faithfully is noticed in person depends on the point of view (POV) and how long the eyes have to adapt. If the observer is seeing sunny and shaded content the shadow will seem cooler. Standing in the shade color vision will shift and content that looked cool in the "wide" shot will look normal in the shade because the observer's color perception will shift to "normalize" what is seen.

What makes a photo not look "right" are clues like the balance of color which don't match expectations given all the other clues in the scene. In a Daylight WB shot of a face in the shade the cooler light will not look "right" in a close-up where the context of the sunny background isn't also seen.

The background provides the context and sets up what the brain expects. If looking at a face with the sunset in the background the face will be in the cooler in a Daylight WB capture due to the bluer skylight but the brain will expect it to look neutral (adapted perception) or even warmer than normal matching the background. What I often do in outdoor shot taken with Daylight WB recorded with noticeably cooler is create a dupe layer, warm it, then use a mask on it to select the shadows to selectively warm them up and look more "normal". When shooting portraits I always have the subject hold a gray card near the face so when editing I can "snap" the card and face to a neutral technical baseline that more closely matches the perception of the face in person with color adapted to the ambient light.

Tonal range works similarly. Eyes adapt while scanning a scene and the perception is a full tonal range with detail everywhere. A photo taken with a shorter fixed range will not look "right" when the scene range exceeds sensor forcing a loss of detail on one or both ends of the tonal scale as in this shot. The extent a photographer can "get away" with that varies with content. In a photo of a black cat you can get away with blowing the highlights on the white teeth and eyes. In a photo of a white cat you can get away with a loss if shadow detail. But try to put the white and black cat in the same shot with the black cat in the shade and it will trigger a "doesn't look right" reaction.

In a photo like this one there's more latitude for both color and tonal range normality in background and foreground. The best approach at capture is to shoot on a tripod and bracket enough to wind up with one shot with "normal" seen by eye highlight detail and another with the detail in the shadows you'd see in a well lit shot. The combine them in PP with masking or HDR software.

HDR produces a result that doesn't look normal because there is too much shadow detail (more than noticed by eye). The reason for that is perceptual. In person the eyes in a dark scene will jump over the shadow detail and look and dwell on the highlights so detail in the shadows isn't noticed much.

What will make the full range HDR more "normal" looking is if you use a multiply adjustment layer or the "Burn" tool to darker all the areas which the eye would jump over as unimportant in person and use the "Dodge" tool to selectively lighten shadow details your eyes caught and dwelled on scanning the scene in person.

Learning how to make the perceptual impression of looking at the photo more like the in-person impression is simply a matter of becoming CONSCIOUSLY aware of how your eyes SUBCONSCIOUSLY jump from focal point A, B, C, etc. and skips over the stuff between them without dwelling on it. When scanning a scene to "connect the dots" it dwells on the brain gets a holistic sense of the context (day / night / time of day / indoors, etc. ) but will not remember the details as much as in the focal points.

When you can't take bracketed exposures on a tripod (or use flash in the foreground) the next best thing is to make two RAW copies of file exposed for highlight detail then in the second pull up as much detail above the all noise threshold as possible then HDR blend them as with bracketed exposures. Again the final step should be to selectively edit the full range HDR to make viewing it similar to the perceptual scanning of the scene in person; burning in unimportant areas, dodging shadow detail you want the viewer to find and dwell on.

The amount of shadow detail that can be pulled out of most RAW files is so substantial that it's often not necessary to make a dupe copy for the shadow detail, but often the manipulations on a single file in the shadows will adversely affect the look of the highlights. I like using separate highlight / shadow adjustment layers because it allows using the opacity sliders on the layers to decide by comparison on the best blending mix.

In concept it's very much like making a Zone System print. The goal SOOC was a negative to get a full range of detail on the print. That was just the starting point for making creative adjustments via dodging and burning to emphasize / de-emphasize content to "edit" the storyline created by "connecting the dots" perceptually while scanning. Becoming more consciously aware of how you scan and dwell informs you what to dodge and make lighter, burning in the rest so the eye jumps between lighter areas with the shadows. You can control the eye path with the relative contrast of the areas. See the perception tutorial on my web site: http://photo.nova.org

What did you guys think of the last edit? That was taking in all the advice and retrying my blend to get what i wanted without 'too' much. Since Cgardner adress it also, this was like 15mins after sunrise...

cgardner... so since i blended you multiple raw exposures, were you saying i did it ok, or you didnt like it? Good info, just didn't see anything about my pic or likes/dislikes?

The banding in the starburst/sky are bothersome for me, as is the cast. I think the tonal values in the rocks last version has looks somewhat better @ brightening the glint ... but while I'm wanting to like it better, I can' quite put my finger on it other than to feel it is "overcooked" in some ways. Still would like to see the original capture(s)/raw.

Perceptually the first shot posted doesn't have as much detail as I'd see in person as I scanned into the shadows and my eye adapted so apart from the sunset on the left I don't find it very interesting or compelling.

Color balance-wise it looks as I would expect it to look. Not being there in person I don't know what the rocks looked like with "normalized" color perception but there are no "that doesn't look right" trigger clues in the shadows..

In terms of story in the photo? I'm first drawn to the sun because it is brightest and on the left (I read photos on pages with text from upper left > right > down like the text). When I do explore the shadows I notice the rock on the top right resembles Snoopy's profile with the rock in front of it looking like the ear. That changes the storytelling potential from a 1 (scene I've seen 1,000 times) to a 10 (a clever visual pun / association).

The way I'd editoralize the editing of what was actually there and recorded SOOC to increase the likelihood the viewer sees Snoopy in the rock would be to lighten the foreground on in the lower left (everything other than Snoopy's nose and ear) so Snoopy's profile left as is darker and underexposed perceptually, contrasts with the entire left side and draws more attention to it's shape to trigger the association. What you'd be doing is a variation on what I suggested, normalizing the detail on the left to make it "as seen by eye" similar to the sun on the left, but leaving the right side as captured to make Snoopy contrast with the left side.

Given the limitations of the sensor range you need to factor in what can be done in PP to edit the message and learn to pre-visualize the result.after selectively lightening and in some cases darkening areas in the SOOC file selectively.

Start by asking what the focal point is, then what context is needed to create a story around it. If you read my comments on Oregon Gals sunset shots this is an example of an "Easter Egg" focal point with the perceptual focal point of the sun acting like a diversion to delay the eye of the viewer finding the rock and connecting it's pattern with Snoopy's nose seen in cartoons. But the clever visual punchline only works if they are familiar with Peanuts and Snoopy. I grew up reading Peanuts on the front page of the funny papers. Younger viewers might not make the connection or only associate it with MedLife which uses Snoopy on it's blimp and other advertising. Jokes only work if the audience is familar with the subject matter and context.

I know this isn't the direction you are trying to go, and it is very incomplete (too much effort to reverse engineer everything, easier to start from originals), but I thought I'd show it to illustrate some areas with less red overall toning / cast.

To me the connection between the starburst and the red "glinting" off the rock is an interesting aspect of the lighting. Having an overall red cast steals that dynamic somewhat, imo. The amount of detail that is available seems like something that is being lost to the cast.

Crop offered for consideration also to help connect the sunburst to the main rock illumination area.